Hello, Boss! Demo v.2.5 [BL]

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

Daisuke. I have a weakness for the seemingly fun and carefree characters.

2) How's the pacing and writing? 

It was good but it seemed like Kazuo's introduction had a lot more monologue than I would've liked. 

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

The love interests seem like they have a personality and backstory that we can explore.

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I liked that you used icons instead of words but I wish there was a log to see the script. Also, the options for perferences should all be on one screen, not multiple. When I choose to go to settings when playing the game, I shouldn't have to wait for the screen to transition through sliding either.

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

The hook was good enought to play to the end, but I felt tedious to go through all the monologue for Kazuo and the questions for Daisuke and Kou.This could just be me though.

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

The first soundtrack played when Kazuo is first introduced in his bed reminded me of the Simpsons opening. It was smooth and sauve but the saxaphone was kinda giving me a different vibe.

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

Add a log to your textbox so we can see the script. Sometimes I missed what a person just said. Please allow us to save when choosing options too. Make all the options for perferences be on one screen. Transition to the perferences screen from playing the game instantly, not though sliding.

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

I love Kou! It was hard to choose between the two but I loved his design and personality. At first, I thought he would be a bit intimidating and mean but the “which animal would you be” question made me think of him differently.

2) How's the pacing and writing? (We're looking for proofreaders for the final script too!)

The pacing is great! And the writing is good too, I like how the MC’s personality changes with each character.

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

The character design is my favourite part of it. I love how Kou has scars, I think that’s a really interesting part of the character and makes the player think about why he has those. Daisuke was just cute all around! His tooth gap really added to him.

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I love how easy I could understand what’s what. But sometimes I found myself wanting to go back and read something because I didn’t understand it correctly and I didn’t know how. Overall I had no problems!

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it make you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

It was very interesting. I played through the end and enjoyed interviewing both of the characters to hear their reasoning for applying. 

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

The music blends nicely with the whole office vibe, I didn’t get to listen to the whole soundtrack because I usually play games without audio, but so far so good.

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

I think having a “go back” option would be nice, I find myself reading things, clicking to the next screen, and realizing I didn’t understand anything. I can’t wait for the full game!

Answers to Ver 1.1:

1. Kazuo. I get attached to the player character first if there isn't an immediate dealbreaker. Also, I sympathize with the pressure of...work.
2. Pacing and writing was good by getting to the point with sufficient context. This is already quite well-proofed! I only noticed two typos.
3. Strong visuals, knowledgeable handling and consistency with the Japanese setting, and the premise of you being the CEO hiring your own secretary.
4. I appreciate the 3:2 aspect ratio and how the UI is good on the eyes (meaning it looks good and I have no problems reading the text)! I felt the Preferences didn't need to be split into its own menu. There's room enough on the screen to have them all laid out, I feel. The sliding animations for the main menu ran on the slow side for me.
5. Liked it! I played to the end of the demo.
6. I think it matches the vibe, but someone else could feel it errs on too upbeat since by all indications it's a Stuffy Corporate Atmosphere.
7. Taking screenshots was messy--I hit an error screen when I hit "S" and it seems an asset for the screenshot notification was missing.

Good luck on progress!

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

I liked Dai a lot! His personality and looks are both my type, and his gap tooth is adorable.

2) How's the pacing and writing? (We're looking for proofreaders for the final script too!)

I thought the pacing was good. It got right into the interesting parts without too much exposition.

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

I like the visual style, with the ui and backgrounds being minimalist and the sprites and cgs being more detailed. I particularly liked Tachibana's angry face sprite xD

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I do like it. However, I disliked that everything was separated in the preferences screen. I'd rather be able to see and choose the options all on the same page instead of each setting having their own.

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

I was interested in both candidates reasons for interviewing! Both of them seemed to have ulterior motives.

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

I thought the music was good. It melded into the background nicely for me, and didn't feel distracting at all.

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

Since the ui and backgrounds are so minimalist, I'd love to see more sprite variety: lots of poses, lots of expressions!

that was super cool, I love the look and feel of the game. here's the qns

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

Tachibana because he's kind of mean and I love chars like that

2) How's the pacing and writing? (We're looking for proofreaders for the final script too!)

Great

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

I love the way the backgrounds are done

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

Nice, really adds to the feel of the game

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

Good. I want to know what Kou's deal is lol

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

Awesome yep totally matches the vibe

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

n/a loved it

i apologize in advance for the novella i'm about to write to you guys lol
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1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?
I enjoy all of them so far! Interested to get to know the two ROs introduced so far. I love the 'childhood friend who wants to be taken seriously' kind of person Dai seems to be but so far my fave is def Kou. I wish I had gotten a better grasp on Kazuo's personality, I can't really figure him out yet. He seems a bit naive despite being a little serious (wondering if the magazine feature would help him not be lonely), but that's certainly not a bad thing and actually quite endearing. He laments his appearance being the highlight of his featured article, but then when referring to his last secretary, he immediately talks about her being beautiful? (specifically the tone of "She was beautiful, sure,") Was the subtle misogyny there on purpose? I'd like a stronger sense of who he is, though ofc that might be hard to get with the demo at the length it currently is. I also really like Dai and Kou's character design--not enough gap-toothed romantic interests in fiction, by far!

2) How's the pacing and writing? (We're looking for proofreaders for the final script too!)
Most of my notes on the writing are suggestions about word choice, conflation, and tone, way too many small notes to make here (esp since this comment is too long already). In case the mention of your search for a proofreader is an open call, let me know! I don't claim to be a professional proofreader, but I am a writer myself and have done a lot of proofreading in the past (gay fanfic, mostly lol. but good fanfic, I swear). If you'd like to vet me, see some of my own writing, talk to the writer I used to proofread for or anything like that--I'm open to it. I like the premise enough that I'd be happy to contribute if you're at all interested :]

3) What aspects of the game do you like?
Most of all, I like the characters and the set-up. I'm a sucker for office romances and I'm a sucker for inexperienced daters getting swept up in a workplace romance especially. I think the rest of this comment makes clear what I like about this game so far.

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?
As someone whose vision is worsening, I can't overstate how much I appreciate the text size. There are some VN demos that I've had to abandon lately just because my eyes hurt looking at them and I'm p sure RenPy does not have a mod to adjust text size. But the font has gotta go, I can't think of anything more unappealing than Times New Roman. No way I'm the only person whose eyes glaze over when they have to read something in the text they wrote all of their school papers in. It also just doesn't look very nice at this size, something else to consider if you choose to switch fonts. As for actual UI talk:

I really like the choice UI! The fade, the way they pop up, heck yes. There is, however, this line underneath each rectangle? It doesn't look intentional so much as it looks like it wasn't erased properly, so I'd suggest either making it bolder or cleaning it up entirely. Ah, and there's a weird dot on the upper left-hand corner of the text box when the speech avatar isn't covering it up that I found distracting.

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?
Yep, consider me hooked! Interesting characters, nice character art, and a protagonist that I can envision falling for the romance options. That's most of what I need to enjoy a romance VN.

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?
I actually quite like the music, I think it does a good job of establishing the vibe the game is going for. My one issue with it is that the main game track's trumpet seems super loud?? and that certainly gets annoying, if it was closer to the volume of the other instruments in the track, I wouldn't have an issue with the BG music at all.

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?
A few! I hope this is helpful and not over-stepping.
- I initially wasn't going to mention this since so often VN projects feature commissioned/contracted art, but I see that the writers are also the artists for this game. Kazuo in bed looks very different from him on the magazine cover... and both of those look nothing like the art style of his speech avatar, all three of which we see in relatively quick succession. I know CG art sometimes differs from other character art in visual novels, but to have all 3 look so different from one another breaks immersion quite a bit and quite early in the demo.

- This, I'm not quite sure how to describe, so I'm sorry if I confuse you. I don't hate the idea of having the simple sketches for the backgrounds and I like the drawings themselves. However, it really didn't work for me while playing for a few reasons. The backgrounds do not follow the same scale or dimensions, so there's this feeling of inconsistency between scenery right now. They also feel very flat and I think this has to do with the scenery color palettes matching the background too much. Maybe if the scenes were their own boxed image instead of being images laid transparently on top of a plain background color? Or even just having the color outside of the last outline on screen being something different or neutral. Something about the colors needs to be broken up or diversified in some way, I think... The windows in Kazuo's office also don't look right being the same shade as the whole background, that certainly contributed to making the best designed of these sceneries look and feel flat. And this, I believe, ties into...

- The presentation of the RO sprites feels... a little too close up? It doesn't work for how the office scene is presented since we sort of see the whole room, or at least a large portion of it. I also think they'd look better in the center of the screen, instead of off to the right, and not overlapping.

- There's also the issue of sprite... hm, not proportion, but possibly how it presents on screen? For whatever reason (and I tried to place it, but couldn't quite figure it out myself), Kou's sprite seems like it's just placed lower than Dai's, as opposed to his sprite showing a shorter figure? I'm not entirely sure why, but it might have to do with the sprites cutting off kind of high on the body for a visual novel. I think the common base line for character sprites would be far better at right around the hip for the shortest character or slightly lower. Dai looks fine, which is why I think this might be what's causing this impression for me.
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Ohhkay, that's my long-ass feedback done with. I hope that was of some help and not just overly verbose. I like the demo, though, I'll be following you guys, for sure. Whatever direction you end up going in, I'll be rooting for you! Looking forward to the demo's next iteration!

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

Kou is the only character I like. He actually acts like a real human.

2) How's the pacing and writing? (We're looking for proofreaders for the final script too!)

The writing is very weird. I don't know any people who would talk like Kazuo and Daisuke do. I also have no idea what "detail" Kazuo could possibly miss about whether Kou has one brother or multiple. The game is in English, but presumably they're actually speaking Japanese, which means it would be either 1) not stated at all (more likely) or 2) made extremely obvious, so it's not something he could just miss.

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

None, really. I don't intend to follow this game.

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I liked the right-aligned positioning of choice boxes. I did not like the return button being a long thin vertical bar on the left side; it's just not very noticeable.

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

Well, the game is so short right now that a hook isn't needed for me to play all the way through.

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

I never play any game with music. Ever. I always turn music off or keep the volume at 0 when playing any game.

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

There isn't any reason to try to enhance my personal experience, since I don't intend to follow this game.

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

I really like Daisuke. I like his appearance, personality, and how he is already friends with Tachibana. I’m also curious as to the real reason he applied for the secretary position. (“Let’s just say I’m doing it for the money.” Even Tachibana doesn’t buy that.) I’m invested in his route already, so good job writing this character! 

2) How's the pacing and writing? 

The writing was good, I didn’t notice any glaring spelling errors.

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

I like being given dialogue options. When I first played it, I skipped a few interview questions with Kou. Then, later on, Daisuke said “It isn’t right to skip questions.” I thought he had been eavesdropping during the interview with Kou, but it turns out that he was just anticipating how Tachibana might interview him. I enjoyed thinking that my previous interview choices affected future dialogue. I just enjoy choices with consequences (even minor ones) in games. 

I also like the backgrounds. I wasn’t sure about them at first, but they grew on me quickly. The coloring can be used to reflect the mood and lighting (day/night) of a scene. 

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I found myself looking for a way to go to previous lines of text. I like the image of Tachibana that reflects his mood whenever he speaks.

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

The story was interesting enough that I played until the end. My interest really peaked when Tachibana realized that Daisuke was applying for the secretary position. Seeing him try to hide his annoyance was fun to watch. 

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

I liked the music. I didn’t find it distracting at all. The music during the game was very calming, different from the more upbeat main menu. I’m curious about when (if ever) that upbeat music would be in the game. Feels like it would suit a party atmosphere. 

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

I think Kou’s sprite art could be improved. I’m comparing it to what I believe will be the CG art (the header image on the itch.io page). Going into the game, I expected Kou to resemble the art on the header image. Instead, the sprite art makes him appear frailer and his jawline isn’t as well-defined. His eyebrows are also a different shape. These minor differences changed his appearance so much that he felt like a different character. 

Overall, I really loved the demo. I’ll look forward to your updates. Great work!

1) Who's your favorite character so far and why?

Kazuo. His inner thoughts are quite amusing. My favorite scene is his interview with Daisuke.

2) How's the pacing and writing?

I liked the writing overall. The scenes never felt too prolonged. However the demo ended very abruptly. I think a short scene with bodyguards reacting to their hiring would be a much more satisfying conclusion.

3) What aspects of the game do you like?

The art(both CG and sprites) look great.

4)  How is the UI?  What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I liked that there's already a working gallery button! I played in a windowed mode and the texy box covered almost half of the screen. Maybe make it longer instead? The rest of the UI was fine.

5)  How is the hook for the story? Did it made you play until the end? If it didn’t, what made you stop?

Played trough the end, hired both Daisuke and Kou. The premise is my favorite thing about the game!

6) How is the music for the demo so far? Does it match the vibe of the game? Is it distracting?

The music was vedry fitting for the setting. I actually stopped and listened to it. I noticed clear end and start of each track though, it's better to have a less noticable loop.

7) What other improvements can we make to enhance your experience?

No clear ideas here, but I wonder if you'll release an extended demo featuring the last LI?

I also have a question: are you planning to make full game free or commercial?